PARIS (CN) - Google was fined 300,000 euros for infringing on copyrights and putting snippets of digitized books online without permission, a French court ruled. Publisher La Martinère sued in 2006 on behalf of a group of French publishers, claiming they were being exploited by the search engine's Book Search program, which aims to make millions of books available on the Internet.
La Martinère, Editions du Seuil of France, Delachaux & Niestlè of Switzerland and Harry N. Abrams of the United States argued in their complaint that Google's plans to scan the books was a reproduction and they should be paid.
They also said Google let users browse digitized books for free while taking money from advertisers and not sharing it with the creators of the original work, The New York Times reported.
Google told the Times it plans to appeal, and it was unclear if Google would remove the excerpts or pay the fine.
Google has scanned 10 million books in its effort to make literature available online, the Times reported.
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